by null
Such feeble odds did not concern a power as overwhelming as that of the A’ademir.
Walking stiffly across the cemetery lawn to where Bakur’s steaming body lay, Knight offered several mental prayers pleading that the puppet had been destroyed. The professor had thrown all his remaining tricks into one final basket, a desperate gamble that had left him with barely the strength to stand. If he had not triumphed by that point, he feared he would never be able to do so. Nudging the body before him with his foot, he croaked;
“Well, are you dead, you miserable bastard?”
“Oh, that shell is quite dead.”
Groaning internally, Knight turned as quickly as he could to confront the unexpected form of Dr. Ashur Ungari. Dropping his chin to his chest in weary exasperation, the professor whispered;
“Oh, damn the fools who plague me so … what are you doing here?”
“Nothing, I am afraid, my old friend, of which I think you are going to approve.”
Knight’s shoulders sagged heavily, dropping as far as they could without actually leaving their sockets. If only he knew what Agent Klein was thinking. If he knew the Dream Stone was safe, that bit of knowledge might have given him the hope to go on. But the FBI man’s thoughts, along with those of all the others present that day when Knight had spiked their water, had completely ceased within his head half a day earlier.
Now the professor stared at the approaching Ungari, unable to comprehend what the doctor was doing there in the cemetery, cut off from all sources of information. Helpless and alone. And worse, as best his senses could tell, the archaeologist was not under the control of the A’ademir as his assistant had been—was not merely another extension of the extradimensional plunderer’s will.
But, wondered Knight, if he’s not, then why is he here in Green-Wood? And why, if not controlled by the A’ademir, does he stink of the damn thing’s power?
“Both excellent questions, Piers. But,” asked the doctor, “are you certain you would really like the answers?”
And at that moment, Knight froze in his tracks. He had said nothing, and yet Ungari had heard him, had heard his thoughts— something even the Bakur puppet had not been able to do. Responding in a tired, defeated tone, the professor said;
“As greatly as I might fear whatever it is you have to say, I’m afraid that yes—I must hear it.”
“Very well,” answered the doctor, his smile somehow hard yet benevolent. “I will tell you all I know, that you might understand. First, allow me to congratulate your efforts. I never really thought any of you would be able to stop the—”
Ungari paused, fumbling for a word. After a moment, he finally shrugged, his smile widening as he admitted;
“The fiery beasts, there is no name for them. They are not native to our world. The A’ademir sent me a … how best to describe it? Ummm, a formula—yes. A recipe, as it were, for creating them. The one I sent upstate, to recover the Dream Stone, can you believe it? Destroyed by mere mortal troops.”
Knight’s heart surged.
The Dream Stone was safe.
Klein had upheld his part of the bargain. It was a miracle.
Now, the professor’s brain hissed at him, if we can only manufacture our own miracle …
“And the detective,” Ungari continued, seemingly oblivious to the effect of his news on Knight’s flagging spirit, “containing one of them. It just proves the indomitable will of the human soul, my friend.”
“How do you mean?”
The professor asked his question out of true curiosity. Yes, he meant to stall his former friend, needing every second he could to cobble together his fatigued strength. But yes again, a part of him realized that Ungari’s answer was of extreme importance. Something was going on Knight could not yet comprehend, but which he knew he desperately needed to understand.
“I know you’re stalling for time, but that is all right. You must come to see why I am doing as I am.”
“I say this in all honesty, Ashur,” Knight responded truthfully. “I certainly want to.”
“I know you do, and thus I shall explain. You destroyed Bakur with the combined power of this remarkable detective person—”
“Dollins.” When the doctor stared, uncomprehending, Knight explained, “His name was Jimmy Dollins.”
“Ahhh, I see, yes—of course. Your Mr. Dollins must have been a remarkable man. He had the assistance of your magical trinket, but still, in his dying moments to not try to flee, to go to his death willingly as long as he could take the beast with him, ahh, as I said, remarkable.”
Knight nodded his head in agreement, sucking down deep breaths one after another as he listened to the doctor. As Ungari continued, he almost seemed unaware of the professor’s presence. Returning to the subject of Dollins’ sacrifice, he said;
“This man, he saves all his fellows, and manages to contain the beast by sheer force of will. To do this, of course, he has to doom himself to an existence of roaming the world as a wraith. I send lightning to free my beast, thinking he will take this moment to pass on, and he manages to pull himself back together and contain my pet once more. Finally, he gives his soul over to you to destroy Bakur. Such nobility. And, it is for men like him that I do what I do.”
Hopelessly lost, not having the slightest idea what Ungari was talking about, the professor closed his eyes, pulling down one final deep breath at the same time to cleanse his system. Then, reopening his eyes, he asked;
“And what exactly is it you are doing?”
“Saving the world, of course. No, I misspeak. I am saving humanity.”
“From this A’ademir?”
“No, Piers—from itself.” When Knight showed no further comprehension, Ungari began again, using the tone he would if trying to explain geometry to a child.
“We have pushed this planet to the brink of our own extinction. While the politicians lie and wrangle over the facts of global warming, greedily searching for their own temporary benefits, they doom their children to famine, misery, and death.”
“Ashur—”
“Listen to me, Piers, old man: The facts are in; they are incontrovertible. The polar ice caps are disappearing. The deserts of the world are shifting. The Sahara is sweeping northward into Europe. In only thirty years it will be pushing its way through the Black Forest of Bavaria. The Sahara, extending into the heart of Germany—an incontrovertible fact. Do you not understand what this means? The human race is doomed, and there is nothing that can be done.”
“Surely—”
“Nothing, my friend. If all greenhouse emissions were ceased this very night, it would not be enough. There were only three billion people on the face of the planet in the 1960s. Now the number is spinning toward seven billion. Human beings give off carbon dioxide when they breathe. Piers, the collective governments of the world could agree to slaughter two-thirds of their populations and it would not help. Rotting bodies also give off carbon dioxide. No, it is too late now, my friend, for any solution other than my own.”
And then, in one frightening moment of clarity, Piers Knight suddenly understood what Ungari was trying to explain, and his blood froze within his veins.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“You, you can’t mean …”
“Ahhh.” The light behind Ungari’s eyes sparkled. “You understand at last. Of course I mean it. Just as the people of Memak’tori were swept from the face of the earth, so shall I save humanity by opening our world to the A’ademir.”
Knight stood for a moment, transfixed, unable to move, to speak—even to blink. The monstrous truth of his onetime friend’s admission had stunned him utterly, throwing his mind into a turmoil. He had just been told the sacrificial destruction of billions of human beings was but seconds away. Standing in the darkened cemetery, the early summer night’s chill invading his bones, the professor wrestled with the magnitude of Ungari’s proposal.
Was there, he wondered, something to it?
If the human race was doomed to
massive starvation, to plague and food riots, to a reversion to tribal gang wars, ever-shrinking pockets of people slaughtering one another over ever-dwindling resources, might there not be something to the doctor’s solution? It was severe, cold-hearted—but then, so was amputating a young man’s leg to protect him from gangrene.
If there’s really no other way to save the human race from extinction, thought Knight, could the ends justify the means?
“Understand me, Piers,” came Ungari’s voice in a whisper. “I’m not doing this to become king of the world. To allow the A’ademir access to this world, I will have to offer my own body as its passageway. I would be the first consumed.” And with those words, the doctor turned Knight from any consideration of his ideals. His eyes narrowing to hard slits, fingers curling into fists, the professor responded;
“You almost had me convinced.”
“You do not believe me?”
“Oh, I believe you, Ashur. That’s the problem. Like all self-made martyrs, you think that passing by the rewards of those you consider villains makes you noble. But the prize you’re chasing is adoration. ‘He gave his life for humanity. Oh, how we love him.’ Your problem is you’re afraid to be here when the rising tides have swamped the coasts. You’re terrified of the idea of sand dunes spreading across the base of the Eiffel Tower. You’re a coward—but the thing that annoys me is, for a minute there … you almost turned me into one, too.”
The doctor’s body went coldly rigid. His teeth grinding down firm, he blinked, and suddenly the light behind his eyes flashed forward with a menacing glow. His hands rising, fingertips meeting, pressing against one another before his face, Ungari growled;
“I wanted you to understand what I was doing, Piers. To join me. To welcome the A’ademir.”
“What, as they did in Memak’tori? Tell me, ‘old friend,’ did your precious A’ademir leave anyone behind ten thousand years ago when it dropped in for lunch? For God’s sake, man, what makes you think it’s going to this time?”
Without answering, without warning, Ungari turned his palms toward the professor and unleashed a bolt of pure force, one far more focused than the lightning he had used previously. Expecting such treachery, however, Knight was ready with his white-oak rune held firm in the same hand wearing the ring returned to him that evening. Deflecting the shot, knowing he could not survive many more, the professor turned and ran into the cemetery, desperate to gain some time. Shaking his head slightly, sadly, Ungari marched forward at a steady pace, calling out;
“Do not waste our time, Piers. You cannot escape me. You cannot defeat me.”
Ignoring the doctor’s comments, Knight raced through the cemetery, his mind desperately attempting to concoct some sort of plan.
“You are a competent, minor magician, Piers!” shouted Ungari. “I grant you that. But the tiny grams of power you might be able to pull out of this place are nothing compared to that which I hold. Let us make this easy upon ourselves.”
Crashing wildly along through the poorly lit graveyard, the professor tried to remember the way to one particular spot. Ungari was correct about his magical abilities. As he had explained to Bridget only the other night, he was capable of extracting the stored energy in objects. But what object, anywhere within Green-Wood, could possibly hold enough energy to withstand the power granted the doctor by his extradimensional accomplice?
Hoping he knew, Knight pushed himself to the limit, throwing himself through hedges, slipping on the dew-soaked grass, while all along Ungari followed him slowly but steadily.
Finally, when the doctor caught up to Knight, he found the professor sprawled in front of a slightly larger than life-size statue of one goddess or another. Walking forward, the doctor reached down and then jerked Knight roughly to his feet. Holding him aloft, he said in a chiding voice;
“Piers, foolish little Piers. This is your answer, your means of defeating me? A statue of Minerva? How much energy did you think you would find stored here? It has been nearly two thousand years since she was worshiped with any regularity by the pontifex maximus. Since I don’t believe this edifice was erected that long ago, who do you think has been leaving any emotional energy here?” Throwing the professor back against the statue, Ungari laughed as he added;
“Here, old man, take what you want from your relic. Take your best shot. Then I shall get along with the business of saving mankind.”
Clutching the statue, licking at the blood leaking from his cracked lips, dribbling down from his broken nose, Knight slowly began to drag himself upward as he explained;
“You’re right; it is a statue of Minerva. She was the Roman goddess of war, as I’m certain you remember.”
“I do.”
“Well, the funny thing about history, Ashur, is that it’s hard to know all of it. For instance, Charles Higgins, the man who built this mausoleum for himself, christened this piece Minerva and the Altar of Liberty. Can you guess why?” When Ungari merely shrugged, Knight, his hands still gripping the statue hard as he continued to struggle back to his feet, told him;
“It was meant to commemorate the Revolutionary War’s Battle of Brooklyn. Higgins built his resting place here, on this hill, because it was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of that conflict. Lot of blood spilled here, lot of mourning—still, you’re right, even with nearly a hundred years of visitors to this site to see this piece, there couldn’t be enough energy for me to gather to stop the A’ademir.” The professor paused for a moment, then added softly;
“Or at least, there wouldn’t be, if it weren’t for one little thing.”
“And what is that?”
“To leave behind a piece of one’s soul, to mark a site with one’s own ectoplasmic residue, one must be moved. The soul must be stirred. You were right about Minerva. In this day and age she does not elicit much in the way of human response anymore. But … she makes an excellent receptacle for a lady who does.”
So saying, Knight pointed forward off to some far away point in the gloomy distance. Still unworried over Knight or his abilities, the doctor turned around to see at what his former friend was pointing. As he did so, Ungari caught sight of something far off in the waters beyond the distant shore. As he tried to make it out in the gloom, the professor told him;
“If you haven’t heard, we call her the Statue of Liberty. And unlike Minerva, the sight of her does stir the souls of men.”
And, so saying, Piers Knight reached into Higgins’ monument and unleashed in one overwhelming flash the stored awe and respect of millions for the great bronze lady in the harbor beyond.
For close to a century, visitors had been following Minerva’s hand as it pointed through the always carefully trimmed trees to her counterpart beyond. Goddess of war, Mistress of Liberty, the effect of seeing the one hailing the other had moved hundreds upon hundreds of thousands to tears. Now, Knight gathered every iota of that raw emotion unto himself and used it to defend all of mankind.
The power slammed into Ungari with the force of a runaway truck. The doctor was smashed into the ground, flipped head over heels, then driven harshly into the earth. Despite the power granted to him by his extradimensional benefactor, Ungari’s bones were cracked, his nervous system set afire, his blood boiled within his organs and veins and heart.
The doctor struggled to turn back toward Knight, to defend himself, to protect his dream. He could not. His eyes roasted, steam falling away from his body, drifting on the breeze, he attempted to take a step toward the professor, only to fall over suddenly. His back slamming against a small tombstone, Ungari felt his spine shatter. He gasped as the additional pain tore through his nervous system. Then, just when Knight had no more energy to throw against him, the doctor slumped over and slid to the ground. Beaten.
Destroyed.
Hoping his work might finally be over, the professor allowed his straining legs to collapse underneath himself. Somewhere on the trip to the ground he closed his eyes, never actually feeling the moment of impa
ct.
EPILOGUE
It was several hours before Piers Knight woke up. When he did so, he found himself stretched out upon his own living room couch. Sitting in one of the chairs on the other side of the room he found Denny LaRaja, quietly sipping a cup of tea. As the professor stirred, the detective said;
“Hmmm, well, look at you, all awake and everything. Welcome back to the land of the living.”
“Thank you. Glad to be back. Where’s Bridget?”
“In the kitchen, making more tea. Shall we get you a cup?” Forcing himself up upon his elbows, Knight replied;
“I think I’d like that—yes.”
Over the next forty-some minutes, the three caught each other up-to-date. Word from Fort Drum was that a terrorist attack had been averted at a great cost of American life and property. Hints were made about some sort of terrible new weapon, but there had been no mention of fire demons. As for Bakur and Ungari, LaRaja had called in an “anonymous” tip, alerting the authorities as to where they might find the bodies. Charred, broken, partially disintegrated, the uncovering of what had happened to them would be left to the federal authorities, along with the mystery of the disappearance of the FBI agents who had been keeping tabs on the two men.
Most likely, Knight thought, it will simply be decided they fell victim to the same weapon that was unleashed at Drum. Bureaucrats do like to tie things up neatly.
It was agreed upon that if as simple a thing as keeping the Dream Stone from being returned to Syria could forestall the A’ademir from entering the Middle East, then it would be best if the artifact was destroyed. Considering the world already believed that was the case anyway, the professor had suggested to Klein while they were updating each other that the agent take care of that small problem. The FBI man assured Knight such would give him immense satisfaction.
